Federation Reborn 2: Pirate Rage (20 page)

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking. He had recently received and approved Horatio and Phil's plan to build the
Argus
, the first fleet carrier of the Reborn Federation. She was named after the first Terran aquatic carrier to launch and land aircraft, a British model from 1918.

Lieutenant Commander Wong was still going over their blueprints they had sent to Antigua through the convoy network however. If he signed off on it, then it would go before a hopefully brief review board before it went into production. But Irons had signed off on Pyrax opening up the initial stages and setting aside some of their production to start on the project.

He'd also signed off on handing over the convoy escort duties to the
Nelsons
,
Fletchers
and
Shield Maidens
. That was something of a relief and something he'd expected a while ago. After all, the three classes were defensive classes in nature. They were designed for the roll. It would free more Arboths up to man the squadrons while also going out to visit other worlds around the sector … or even in neighboring sectors.

He knew the reasoning behind sending the convoy escorts even though technically they weren't truly necessary for the moment. It was: one, good practice; two, it allowed the crews to develop the necessary skills and seasoning; three, it wore in the components; four, kept them busy and not sitting still somewhere; five, the very act of looking busy, of defending something was a political one; and six, the most important—just in case. Just in case they were needed, just in case something went wrong …, and since they were nodular, they could be skimmed off for some other mission if needed.

What bothered him was that he couldn't get his hands on the plans long enough to form his in-depth own opinion nor add his own two cents. Maybe that was for the best he thought with a pang, too many cooks and all that. But then again, they needed all the experienced eyes. His fingertips twitched to touch the controls and call up the blueprints, but he stopped himself. No, he had his own work to do; he could “play” later.

Chapter 10

Admiral Subert rubbed his brow as he read the reports. His teams were doing what they could to get ready for expedition to go to Bek.
Caroline
would be arriving within a week; once she arrived they'd do a fast turnaround or so Horatio promised him.

Logistics had the care package and survival gear the ship would need to carry at their fingertips or so Saul assured him. That was good. He knew the crew deserved liberty before the eventful jump, but he was reluctant to wait. He'd settled on a couple days while they figured out how to cram so much gear into a small warship with little room to spare. Saul was still going around muttering about ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bucket.

He was still unsure about the helm team on the ship however. The light cruiser needed a crack helm team, one of veterans if possible, and premier hyper navigators and helmsman were a must to survive the rapids. However, there were a
reason
premier people were so sought after; they were in terribly short supply.

He had four genies from Epsilon Triangula working their way through the schools. They were woefully short on a basic education; three of them hadn't known how to read or write at all. But they had proven they were natural navigators in the simulators. The selkies from Agnosta and Kathy's World were either already assigned to ships outside the star system or were just starting their training. They were out.

He was sorely tempted to bump the quartet. To assign them as hands on the ship with their education to be continued and finished on the cruiser under the direction of the JTO. They could do something about polish later. But that temptation warred with caution; none of the quartet had any sort of actual experience in the god sea.

He also didn't want to lose any of them, let alone all four to one ship. They were in such short supply … but
Caroline
would need them all. The rapids were no picnic; he'd seen the reports John had forwarded to him for the
Caroline's
bridge crew to go over. Even John had been of two minds about taking the rapids on his own and he was an experienced spacer who had been in and out of the jump chain several times. If he had been nervous about it, then there was reason to worry about risking the light cruiser.

But it had to be done. They had to find out what was there, one way or the other. If the fleet admiral was correct, then there was some sort of yard with a potential population center to draw on. Possibly more than one since there was one other star system in the warp chain that had occupied planets prior to the Xeno war.

Did the Xenos leave them alone and intact? They hadn't with other yards, but they had left a lot of planets alone in the sector. It was a possibility. Then again, they could have sent in a changeling … his thoughts slithered to a stop as he shuddered. Those bastards …

Security had been stepped up since the
Bismark
incident. The changelings might not have been at the root of the problem but it had warned everyone that the Horathians shouldn't be taken lightly. Their intelligence teams were pretty good. He grimaced.

The
Bismark
incident and the current balance of forces was probably why John was pushing the Bek expedition now he thought. He wished that John would wait, would allow him to get several navigational teams together, have a second ship to go with
Caroline
… but he understood the need.

He prayed to Lady Luck that the ship would come through for them as he did his best to help them along the way.

Horatio had the yard turning out the mothballed ships at a good clip. They were slowly working through the backlog, which capitalized on their advanced status compared to the Antigua yards.

But Antigua was catching up. Not only that, but she was still the center of production for critical components of just about every ship, which put a bottleneck on his own production. His own keys were limited; he wasn't an engineering type. Admiral Irons had waved some of that, but he couldn't give him full unfettered access to the keys like he had despite his ascendancy to the presidency.

He shook his head. They'd deal with it. Even with the convoys bottlenecking his production, Horatio had the escort yard turning out a frigate every week. He now had four full squadrons of the things, with another three squadrons detached in Agnosta, Gaston, and Seti Alpha 4. That line also did some of the support ships they seemed to need so desperately.

Unfortunately, the frigates, corvettes, and gunships weren't needed, or not so much not needed as
out classed
. After the second battle of Protodon, they had done a lot of changes to the production schedules and strategic planning. Instead of hundreds of small ships picketing star systems as John had planned, the encounter with the two Horathian BCs had made them up the ante to destroyers or larger ships at a minimum.

The destroyer line was rolling out a tin can every six weeks. Horatio had focused on two designs, the
Nelson
and
Arboth
class.
Fletcher
class DDs were going to be built exclusively at the Antigua yard it seemed; just rebuilding the
Nelsons
to Flight IV status was a pain in the ass. Modifying them to meet the new standards of design knocked back their production time but only by a few weeks. They were still coming in a couple weeks under what it would take to produce them from scratch.

They had finished the light cruiser production line to focus on
Kittyhawk
class escort carriers and
Resolution
flight II class heavy cruisers. Both ship classes were manpower intensive though, as were the capital ship lines.

He had two full carriers under construction as of yesterday—or he should say, back under construction since Horatio had built them as partial hulls. The man never ceased to surprise him he thought. His eyes flicked to the battle cruisers. The
Newmann
flight II class were coming off the lines every six months. With eight lines in production, it meant they were churning out a BC at about one every four to five weeks baring any hiccups in production.

Manning them was becoming the big headache, not just enlisted crew but properly trained officers as well. He was scrounging for qualified officers to man the ships of Third Fleet. He frowned and then tapped out another request to John. He needed one of the best in his neck of the woods, someone to handle the ships while he saw to the star system. Mayweather wasn't available so that left Harris or Vargess.

He didn't
want
Harris, but he'd settle for the man if he had to. He had a sneaking suspicion since
Damocles
still needed yard time to fix her battle damage he might get her. That was fine; he'd pull the crew and allow Harris to take the pick of the litter to use as a nucleus for the command crew of one of the BCs. They were professionals; they damn well had better get along.

---<>))))

Wraith copy X49 noted the target's departure once more, and if it had been organic, it would have fumed. Instead, it updated its strategic files while altering its personality profile of the target. It had attempted to fulfill its secondary mission of gaining control of an organic in order to facilitate its own actions and camouflage, but that had failed. It's projected time line had to be pushed back by another month.

Each day it remained in the computers of the Oasis of Space XCIV, the more it risked its own detection and destruction. It had been careful in how far it had taken control of the vessel.

It had, however, learned some valuable lessons in the attempted subornation. The target preferred organic grown foodstuffs over replicated ones while on “vacation.” It also was only mildly interested in diversions of a reproductive nature. Its current focus was gambling.

The copy had found that the food replicators nanites were suboptimal to its plans to suborn an organic and convert it into a changeling host. The nanites were limited in function with hard wired preventive measures to keep them from doing what the Wraith needed them to do. One attempt at reprogramming them had resulted in the replicator's self-destruction. It decided further attempts were to be curtailed.

It needed access to military or industrial grade nanotech. Unfortunately, it had found that all military personnel it had come into contact with were protected against intrusion with new unrecognized countermeasures. The A.I. clone wasn't designed to think and adapt for itself in that way, however. Each access had been fleeting, the organics tended to prefer not to use their implant hardware when on the ship.

It had, however, suborned a few civilians with limited implants. It kept partial copies of itself in their implant memory as well as in their universal translators as a backup to itself.

It still needed to hack its primary target however. Its last attack had been nearly found out, only it's cover story of a virus in the man's reproductive stimulation video and auditory files had kept it from being discovered. It would be easy to get the human back; all it needed to do was to reprogram the ship's computer to issue him a weekend free pass the following month. The human never wondered why he was getting so lucky at receiving such things. Undoubtedly, he attributed his good fortune to the casino ship wanting his business as well as that of other naval officers he was near.

He didn't know how true that was.

---<>))))

Captain Senior Grade Horatio Logan looked at the production board and then to the images of the yard and then to the system plot beside it. When he saw the busy massive shipyard and the ships around it, he felt a thrill of pride. Pride at his part of the accomplishment yes, but also at what people could do, what they could achieve when they put their minds to it. From virtually nothing they'd wrought a powerful yard and growing Federation presence, a beacon to renew civilization he thought.

He snorted when his eyes cut to a new message. It was from the ansible, from the yard there. Another pair of ships had commissioned. He shook his head. He was amused at the friendly rivalry Vestri was trying to cultivate with him. It wasn't fair, Vestri had the admiral on site so he could make anything he wanted at whatever pace the admiral agreed to.

His eyes turned to the ships. There were a lot of them—some small, but others bigger and soon, much bigger still. Third Fleet was growing by leaps and bounds with a ship commissioned daily. He couldn't keep up with the commissioning ceremonies alone, and there were so many new faces involved he had to rely more and more on his implants to keep track of everyone.

Training exercises were going on every week. A full-on fleet exercise was overdue. He had a feeling Admiral Subert wasn't as comfortable exercising fleet command as he let on. It might be why he stayed on the staffer side of the job. He definitely had a knack for dealing with the bureaucracy and paperwork. Now if his people skills were brought up to speed, the man might not have so many problems.

Why the hell was he so abrasive? Was it due to the time slip? He himself suffered from it. Time shock was a part he knew about as well, and he still wasn't 100 percent. Everyone took to it differently just like every flag officer handled their staff and duties differently… wait, was
that
it? He frowned thoughtfully. Some admirals played mind games with their staff. They projected an air of disapproval to get their underlings to keep them happy or at least neutral. They even let their tempers and theatrical talents run free rein whenever something bad happened, even when it wasn't anyone's fault. It was a way to draw them out, to strip away the self pity and induce them to rise to the occasion. To toughen them up. Sometimes it caused cover your ass thinking, never good when a flag officer needed all the information he or she could get.

He had served under a few officers like that. They hadn't been pleasant experiences. He preferred Admiral Irons’ path. John had a way of
leading
people, not treating them like children or throwing them into the deep end to sink or swim with the sharks. He taught them and in the process inspired them to be more, to step up and take the initiative to get the job done.

Sometimes they had hiccups, but many times it produced stunning results. He was proud of Renee, Harris, his own daughter Shelby, and others the admiral had taken on faith. They were the stars of the next generation of officers he thought.

Despite the second battle of Protodon, or perhaps because of it, people were pulling out all the stops. Lethargy and apathy about the dark ages were becoming a thing of the past. Everyone wanted a piece of the brighter future they were trying to create.

And because of the battle of Protodon, there were many who realized that they had a lot to lose if they failed to protect it. That the barbarians were real and had to be kept at bay or better yet, rooted out and destroyed.

Knox News was still running feel-good pieces to balance out some of the darker stories. Some of the other media houses had gone from uplifting to doom and gloom and now had a more skeptical tone. He hoped it wouldn't last long, but he doubted it. He did like to see them covering the occasional commissioning ceremony though he knew they only did it as filler on a slow news day.

Or when the ship was a battle cruiser he thought with a mental snort. Well, he had one up on Vestri he thought.
Argentina
and
Peru
,
Newman
flight II class BCs were both commissioning by the end of the week. They were destined to be division mates in Third Fleet.
Argentina's
commissioning had been delayed due to a hiccup in parts and a couple teething issues. They could work up together though, working their equipment and crews in properly.